


nice spot

by Rest



Category: You Could Make a Life Series - Taylor Fitzpatrick
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Career
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 08:45:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9597575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rest/pseuds/Rest
Summary: Jake is an alpha, all right? He likes providing, and he likes showing, proving, that he can provide.He really likes to do that.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nowfailingoutofschool](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nowfailingoutofschool/gifts).



> I'm trying to write the ridiculous AUs I want to read, so here's a combined video coach & A/B/O AU.

 

NEW GUY

The Panthers have a lot of coaches. Mostly, Jake gets along with them fine. Mostly, he thinks they’re helpful, and that they know what’s best for him, and that they want what’s best for the team.

He thinks all that stuff about the new video coach. He just also thinks the new video coach is, like, _beautiful_.

——

The new coach joins up with the Panthers after Jake’s been there for two years. Jake’s busy with a lot of Captain things during that pre-pre-season: extra signing stuff, and media, and going over NHL rules of play _exhaustively_ with one of the assistant coaches.

The guys have mentioned some of the new coaches, trainers, and front office people, here and there. ‘The Big Dude’ is a have-no-mercy massage therapist who made Gally cry. ‘The Mean One’ is a harsh video coach who also made Gally cry. With laughter. By staring at Joe until he admitted that he hadn’t _not_ high-sticked that one guy that one time.

When Jake finally meets The Mean One, he’s surprised because he’s—he’s small. Not that 5’11”-ish is that small. That’s taller than Jake’s sisters. But small for a hockey rink, sure. He carries the faint, subdued scent of an omega who’s feeling calm, confident. Nothing to get alphas and other omegas riled up over.

The Mean One’s head is bent over an iPad. Jake can’t see his face at all. He gets a look at the rest of him, though. He’s wearing a Panthers polo and a pair of black pants. Yes, Jake likes everything he sees, all right? But he puts it aside. He’s a professional.

So he _maybe_ stumbles in the drill line a little bit when he looks over and sees The Mean One turn his face up to confer with one of the assistant coaches. So what?

——

The Mean One’s name is David and he’s the whole package.

He’s smart. _So_ good at looking at the boys and figuring out what they’re doing wrong, what they’re doing right, and what they could be doing better. He’s competitive, too. It gets Jake’s blood going. David wants to win. He wants Jake to be better. He thinks Jake should be better.

Jake also wants to win.

During their first video review session, just Jake and David and Coach, David rips into him. Politely. “This moment was a problem. It forced Smith’s hand, over here,” David hits play for a moment, then pauses again, “and he lost his dominance over that quadrant.”

“I had to do something, though,” Jake says. “I can’t just let the opposition stomp me.”

Coach nods to David. David’s eyes are narrow, lips pursed. “There are many ways to prevent that from happening. You—those methods—they don’t work to the team’s advantage if they don’t play to the team’s strengths.”

Jake watches him. “You just want me to play, like, an honorable game, don’t you?” he asks.

David’s jaw moves minutely. “I want you to play the best game that you can,” he says. “I want you to score.”

“We all do,” Coach adds.

It’s not hard to pay attention to what David’s saying. To get into his view of the game and to work on the stuff that he brings to the table. It maybe should be, because David continues to be, like, _distractingly_ beautiful. Later, by himself, Jake does get lost in some thoughts about the slight edge of ferocity to David’s coaching. Thoughts about where else that streak crops up.

When Jake’s working it’s easy to put other stuff on one side. David is so good at his job, and Jake wants to _win_.

 

GOOD PLACE

Jake’s been really feeling good about the north wing of the arena.

It doesn’t get better light than the south wing, it’s not warmer or cooler, it’s not more or less central. It just gives Jake a good feeling.

He gets attached to spaces like every other alpha gets attached to spaces. He finds ones, here and there, that feel good. Important. He wants to get in them, assert a right to the space, improve it, spend time in it. There was one hotel room in Cleveland that felt _so_ nice. It was hard to leave. He gets that way less than a lot of the other alphas he’s known, though. It’s probably a byproduct of the hockey life. He travels a lot, sees a lot of different places, so he’s used to finding spots he likes. He’s also used to passing them by, no harm no foul.

Something about the north wing is really doing it for him, regardless. If he’s got work to do at the arena, he does it in the north wing. Anything, ranging from initialing and signing small stacks of paperwork to some of his PT, happens there. Sometimes in one of the empty break rooms. Sometimes in the main hallway. Sometimes on the second floor, in front of the biggest windows. He feels, strongly, that doing work there is _better_ than doing it somewhere else.

——

He doesn’t find the locus for a couple of weeks. He wonders if it might be the whole wing, but that doesn’t feel exactly right. It’s someplace nearby. It’s waiting for him.

It feels obvious, when he finally does find it. He’s walking down the ground-floor hallway, and he stops. Backs up a little. Turns to the left. He’s facing the door to the video room.

The door is locked, but his cards opens most places in the arena. When he cracks the door open, no one’s in there. It’s dark and small, a longer than it is wide. A hundred square feet, maybe. A little less. The ceiling is comfortingly low, and there are no windows. Everything in it is black—walls, ceiling, floor. Even the desks, chairs, and monitors that line the wall across from him are black.

He steps inside and closes the door. The lock clicks into place behind him.

He shivers a little.

This is—this is a _good_ spot. Industrious work is done here, for the good of the team. It smells clean, no weird chemicals, and it’s a tiny bit stuffy. A very warm place. Only one entrance to keep an eye on.

He wants to lay out along one of the short walls, do some stretches, gain a sense of the layout of the space. Yes, it’s a fairly simple and small room, but it’s a place he likes. Is drawn to.

He should know it better, but—

No one’s there to see him do it, anyway.

 

FIXER UPPER I

Jake likes the video room.

However.

The more he stops by, pokes his head in to check that—he doesn’t know, nothing’s burned down, maybe—the more he dislikes like the chairs in there. They’re not _bad_ chairs. They’re the usual black desk chairs. A little wobbly—one of them in particular, but the rest of them, too. Jake doesn’t like that. They should be stable, if team’s (David’s) going to be sitting on them.

He says something to the right person upstairs and they’re replaced the next time he’s able to stop by and check. The new chairs are sturdy and more comfortable on his back. Good.

——

So he nests the video room a tiny bit. So what?

He gets it, that David is the only omega who would spend a significant amount of time down here. It can’t be a coincidence.

It’s not that weird. David’s a—a good-looking person, an omega, fierce and fast and sharp.

He doesn’t seem to like Jake. Jake likes to be liked.

He figures it won’t do any harm to make sure that David is comfortable. That he has everything he needs to do work for the team, to keep making the team better, to keep a close, critical eye on Jake’s performance. If David decides that Jake’s all right, then that’s just gravy.

——

Jake peeks into the video room one day to find David in there. He’s surprised it took this long, actually, though the majority of time that David’s here, Jake’s probably on the ice. Both prepping for the game in their own ways.

“Oh,” Jake says, startled. David’s head turns before he actually turns his chair fully to face Jake. He straightens up enough for it to be clear that he was _sprawling_ before. Just slightly. Jake thinks his head might have been tipped back against the headrest, even. Jake _likes_ that.

“Lourdes,” David says.

Jake’s mind is terrifyingly blank for a split second before he drums up a thought that isn’t about how Jake would like to sidle in close and sniff David’s hair. “Um, how’s Smith’s wrist doing?” he asks. “From your perspective.”

One of David’s eyebrows might move a little bit. Jake doesn’t know. David has a pretty stony face. He still looks suspicious, somehow.

“His flexibility is back.” David says. “About the same range of movement as he had previously. His wristers aren’t coming at the same rate they were before the surgery, but they could come back in time. Thanks to leg-heavy practices, his skating speed is improving. That may eventually compensate for the current damage to his player value as a whole, and to this team in particular.”

His eyes flit from Jake to one of the other chairs and back again. Fuck. Of course he’s suspicious. Jake just wandered into his space and loomed over him.

He flings himself into the chair in front of David, trying to make himself small. David blinks and keeps going. “The Panthers need him for that speed more than they needed those particular shots. Logging events can’t always help with assessing recovery, though.”

“Good,” Jake says. “That’s really good to know.” It is. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” David says.

Jake shifts in the chair a little. They’re definitely sturdy. Good.

“New chairs,” Jake says after a pause. “They were—I put in a word up front, I noticed the one was kind of weird.”

David’s brow furrows. “Oh,” he says.

“Are they okay? These ones?” Jake asks.

“Yes,” David says.

“Great!” Jake says.

And that would be that, but on his way out, he’d _swear_ the lights flicker and buzz a little bit.

And that’s just no good.

——

He thinks about buying the bulbs himself, but he doesn’t know how to deal with those tube-y fluorescent ones. (And he’s a little afraid of the bulb breaking in his hand as he tries to screw it in. He makes a living off those tendons.)

The facilities person he talks to about it raises an eyebrow at him, but lets him off the hook.

——

They don’t replace the lightbulbs. They replace the light fixtures. That’s the cause of the buzzing, apparently.

The new ones are the fancy green-energy type. There’s a toggle-slide on the wall where the light switch used to be.

Jake slides it down and the lights dim. He slides it up and they brighten.

Oh. Ohhh.

That’s really nice.

He pushes it all the way up and appreciates how clean and bright the room looks, now. He pushes it most of the way down and thinks that it looks _safe_ , and _cozy_ , and _warm_.

The low ceilings will keep it that way when it snows—or when it does _not_ snow, because Jake plays for the Panthers. Not like he forgot about that in his excitement over getting this place together well before winter comes. That would be embarrassing.

——

Yes, okay, Jake is also responsible for the Panthers-branded fleece blankets that end up in there. They’re mostly black; he thinks it’ll be fine. And so _cozy_.

——

He walks past the video room and, as usual, pokes his head inside. He makes eye contact with David.

David blinks, surprised, before tilting his head. “Is this you?” he asks, gesturing to the room as a whole.

“Yeah,” Jake says. “Do you like it?”

David breathes out through his nose. “Yes,” he says.

Nice.

“Why?” David asks.

Jake shrugs. “I like this space. I just thought—it could be improved on, you know?”

“It was fine before,” David says.

“But it’s nice now?” Jake presses.

“Yes,” David repeats. “It’s fine.”

“Okay, great,” Jake says. It is. It’s awesome.

 

OFFERINGS

Jake brings all of his boys little gifts.

The org throws some extra cash the captain’s way. A bonus. Plus, Jake’s contract is solid and expensive. He tries to spread the good will around. They’re _his boys_ , after all.

It’s not an alpha thing, but… it’s not _not_ an alpha thing, either.

When they go out, he tries to get the first round. He’ll bring coffee on really early days. A massive bag of Swedish fish for a long bus ride.

(“This is for everyone, but Nick, as our resident Swede, gets to choose how it’s distributed, all right?” he had announced, and then thrown the bag at Nick’s head. Good times had by all.)

He’s a professional and he loves his job. He’s not watching David all of the time. He’s just aware of him.

Aware of how he really never touches the stuff Jake brings in. Not even when he brings in enough for it to clearly include the coaches. Even when _Coach_ breaks down and has a damn cup of coffee, David doesn’t.

——

“Why doesn’t he want any?” Jake asks Joe.

They’re at the zoo, on an off-day day trip with a good handful of the Panthers and some of the Panthers’ families. PR wants the team posting wholesome pictures from community outings to their personal accounts. Jake can’t really complain.

Joe looks up at the sky, then turns his attention back to the very large churro he’s eating in defiance of all nutritionist standards. “Start over,” he says.

Right. That probably isn’t a good jumping-in-point. “When I bring coffee for the team, Coach Chapman doesn’t have any.”

“Yeah?” Joe asks.

“Yeah,” Jake says.

“And…” Joe prompts.

“Why not?” Jake asks. Manfully.

Joe looks around. “Why did you even bring this up,” he says, one eyebrow lower than the other, not facing Jake head-on.

Jake shrugs. Looks around too.

“Jake,” Joe says. “Why did you bring this up while we’re at the _zoo?_ I am _busy_ trying to commune with my cheat food.”

“I was just wondering what kind of animals he likes,” Jake says.

“Oh,” Joe says. Then, “Oh, dear,” to himself, softly.

“Deer? You think so?” Jake asks. Joe’s fun to mess with. Also, David feeding one of the little deer would be cute.

——

Jake stopped by 22 Bliss before practice and got enough coffee for everyone, in a bunch of different flavors. David has not touched any of it.

Not even the _honey milk_ one. The honey milk one!

It doesn’t make sense.

There’s a gap where everybody’s milling around on the ice. Jake skates up to David, who’s set a little bit apart from the other coaches, furiously stabbing at an iPad.

Jake waits until David finishes and looks up at him.

“What kind of coffee do you like?” Jake asks.

“What?” David asks.

Jake repeats himself.

“Oh. Normal? I don’t really drink it.”

 _Normal_. David is a delight. A delight with very delicate bone structure. “You never drink it?” Jake asks.

“Not unless I haven’t slept right,” David says. He’s staring at Jake like he wants to frown, but can’t find a good enough reason to do so. “I like tea, I guess,” he says.

“What’s your favorite kind of tea?” Jake asks.

“… Black tea,” David says, still eyeing him as something flashes on his iPad.

“Ah, sorry, I’ll let you get back to work,” Jake says.

“It’s… fine,” David says. “Um. Bye.”

“Bye, Coach!” Jake says. He doesn’t yell it from halfway across the rink so that everyone hears him. He wants to, though.

——

The next time he brings coffee in for everyone, he also gets an eighteen-ounce tea latte made with something called Indonesian Gold. There are apparently multiple _kinds_ of black tea. The person behind the counter was very helpful.

“Ah,” he tuts when Gally tries to grab it out of his hand. “This is for Chapman.”

“The Mean One?” Gally asks.

Jake glares momentarily. “ _Chapman_.”

Gally rolls his eyes, but he keeps his hands at his sides.

——

“Chapman,” he says, holding it out to him. David reaches for it automatically.

“Uh,” he says.

“Tea! Indonesian Gold latte. I had them make it with soy milk. I didn’t know if you’re lactose intolerant or anything.”

David doesn’t say anything. He looks at the cup in his hands. Brings it towards his face and sniffs delicately.

“Thank you,” he says, after a thoughtful beat.

“You’re welcome,” Jake says. He’s fairly sure it only sounds half as gleeful as he feels. It would probably be too forward to hold out his hand in hopes that maybe David’ll sniff that, too.

——

Giving David something he likes is a rush. Ideally, Jake would also find something David actively _wants_ , and give him that, and David would like it. That would feel _great_.

——

Jake is an alpha, all right? He likes providing, and he likes showing, _proving_ , that he can provide.

He really likes to do that.

——

David probably knows that Jake is, like, a strong guy.

… Probably.

He must. Jake is a professional athlete. David works for the organization. David has seen a ridiculous amount of Jake’s play.

He hasn’t really seen Jake lift anything, though. What if he doesn’t know that Jake can lift a lot of things? Since he hasn’t seen him do that?

That would be a shame. What if David doesn’t want to lift something, and Jake is there, but David doesn’t know Jake can lift it for him? And then does it himself anyway?

Jake should probably make sure that David knows that he’s strong and shit. To be safe.

——

It would be weird and pushy to walk up to him and start rattling off his bench pressing history.

Demonstrations are better, anyway. They stick in the mind.

Jake is a firm believer in that kind of thing. As the captain, he tries to lead by example. As a person, he just tries to be an example. Or something.

He starts hauling his own shit into and around around the arena with only one hand. He knows David sees it. Mostly because he has conspicuously walked past the video room a bunch of times and popped his head in to say hi twice.

But that’s not a very impressive show of strength.

He tries to supplement it by carrying the team’s shit on and off the ice. Being the guy who drags the giant bag of pucks out and being the guy who drags them back in. Dragging a couple of their smaller guys around, too.

Coach has a trainer give him a talk about not straining his shoulder on “Stupid shit that doesn’t help anybody.”

Jake is banned from puck-dragging and rookie-dragging.

He’s left with one option, really: shirts.

He pulls all of his summer (well, summer-spring-fall—it’s Florida) shirts. Half of them are tank tops and half of them are t-shirts cut up into tank tops. All of them are at best fratty, like college-kid fratty, or maybe gym rat style. All of them have those arm holes. The ones that take up most of the shirt.

Jake’s always felt confident, wearing them. It’s hard not to feel confident when every sideways glance in a mirror makes him go, _Look at those abs, Lourdes, damn!_

——

It’s well air-conditioned, down by the video room. Jake hangs out in his cut-up shirts anyway. It’s worth being a little chilly. David sees him, like, one in every four or five times he’s there. Jake’s gotta be looking his best. Just in case.

——

Jake’s doing his calf stretches against the painted cement brick of the hallway when David emerges from the video room.

Jake doesn’t look over. In his periphery, it looks like David’s watching him— _regarding_ him—for a few seconds before he turns and walks away. After that, Jake switches to arms. Just in case. David doesn’t come back before Jake has to leave, but it’s still a thrill. He _watched_.

 

FIXER UPPER II

The video room is mostly improved, but Jake’s desire to _make better,_ to be industrious, is still going strong.

He turns his attention to his home.

He cleans _everything_. There is so much dust in his apartment. How is there so much dust?

He washes all of his towels, his sheets, his curtains.

He scrubs his bathtub shiny. He scrubs his bathroom sink shiny. He does the same in the guest bathrooms. It’s very satisfying.

Jake discontinued his cleaning service a couple of months into using it. It felt wrong to have someone coming into his space and touching things. Changing them.

…Yes, that sounds a lot like what he’s doing with the video room, but David said he liked the lights and the chairs.

He said he _liked_ them. Jake thinks about that while he organizes his closet. David _liked_ them.

——

Organizing his closet turns into moving his ties to the right side of the door and his shoe rack to the right side of his ties. A walk-in closet feels excessive, but it’s what the apartment came with. Now, he can get dressed by moving around the room clockwise, starting with the set of drawers to the left of the door.

He’s pumped at how smooth and efficient it is. The feeling carries him through rearranging some of the furniture in his bedroom. While he’s doing that, he has insights about the layouts of the guest bedrooms. (Two of them. Also excessive.) When he’s done with that, he figures he might as well head downstairs to his kitchen and see if there’s a better way to arrange his appliances and his knife block. And when _that’s_ done, it just makes sense to go through the rest of his apartment. The lower floor is open plan, all right? It would be silly to only revamp a part of it.

——

Rearranging his apartment leaves him with a list of stuff to buy. He should get an actual bookshelf. He doesn’t own a lot of books, but the ones he does own sit on the floor. He thinks it would also be nice to pick up a shoe rack to leave by his front door. The Canadian Panthers are always taking their shoes off the moment they step inside. They sometimes look stressed out and confused when they realize there’s nowhere to put them.

While he’s at it, Jake needs to replace the curtains he destroyed when he was running everything through his washing machine.

——

Jake mentions that he might go looking for curtains, and Gally somehow goads him into an actual Ikea trip. He picks him up in the morning—and it is _morning_ , like eight a.m., because Gally is not a man who appreciates sleeping in. He does his usual mile-and-minute talk. Part of it goes, “You nesting, bro? That’s cool. They have all sorts of shit. We’ll find you some good stuff.”

“I’m not—I’m not,” Jake splutters.

Gally side-eyes him. Gally shouldn’t be allowed to side-eye him. Jake has seen Gally snort beer from laughing too hard.

“Not,” Jake says.

“Nesting,” Gally says.

Jake frowns. “No,” he says, drawing out the ‘o.’

“Yeah,” Gally says. He gives Jake’s shoulder a condescending pat. It’s kind of nice.

——

“Sure you don’t want to look at bed stuff?” Gally keeps asking while they trek through the store.

“I’m sure,” Jake says. He does, actually, want to look at it, but he doesn’t want someone _else_ to be there while he assesses pillows and blankets and sheets.

 

DOMAIN

Jake used to be a little weird about bedrooms. He still is, actually.

When he and Allie and Nat were little kids, the three of them shared a room. His mom decided that if Jake was going to be waking up at dawn to go to practice, he could wake up in the basement, where he didn’t force anybody else up with his clumping and clattering. It was probably for the best? Him and Allie got territorial as they grew up.

The basement was always slightly drafty. Compared to the rest of the house, it sprawled. Too big for Jake to feel certain in the space. He was glad he didn’t have it all to himself; he slept in one small, cordoned-off area. There was a curtain up for nominal privacy, but it didn’t go the full length of his bed. Which was a twin.

College was better. He had a twin-extra-long.

Jake had a few years of less-than-ideal sleeping circumstances, is what he’d call it.

And less-than-ideal jerking-off circumstances.

God, _so_ much less than ideal.

He’s had his own room—with a door that _locks_ —since his first year with the Panthers. For the first two weeks that he had an all-his, only-his room, he spent _all_ of his free time in there. Parey eventually asked Jake how he was feeling, if he thought he was settling in okay.

Jake had waved away Parey’s concerns and made a better effort to do something other than beat his dick raw.

Turning the lock on his own bedroom door is still a turn-on for Jake. It’s his space, where he can spread out. And where he can, yes, beat his dick. Or fuck someone. Within reason, he can be as loud as he wants, and he never has to come in a sock. He’s got a king-sized bed all to himself. When he’s feeling really heat-hazy, too alpha-excitable, he can just come all over it. And never wash his sheets. ‘Cause it’s _his_ bed.

No, okay—he does wash his sheets, he’s not, like, disgusting. He just likes to be… filthy, sometimes.

The only thing better than getting filthy all by himself is doing it with someone else.  

The point is that he’s definitely not going to let Gally get involved with Jake’s bedroom plans.

——

At Ikea, he grabs all of the stuff he needs pretty easily: curtains, shoe rack, bookshelf.

He also finds this… rug. It’s a _good_ rug.

That being said, it’s not a tasteful rug, or a practical rug.

It’s a giant pure-white sheepskin, basically. The fur is synthetic, allergy-friendly, and slippery-silky-soft. He runs his fingers through the display rug for a while, entranced, and then sorts through the giant crate of rolled-up rugs below the display. His favorite is buried underneath the first layer. It’s satisfying to lift out and carry around with him. He doesn’t even mind Gally’s crowing about porn sets from the 1970s. Though he does have to suppress a tiny growl when Gally’s meatball hands get too close to it.

——

The rug’s not really right in Jake’s apartment, though.

It definitely could be. But something’s missing.

Really, the best place he can imagine for it right now is the video room.

He doesn’t _do_ it. He knows where the line is, and it comes before redecorating the video room as a 1960s porno set.

He bundles the rug back up and puts it in his car. In case he needs it.

——

On their next day with only practice and no games, he drags his ass to Bed, Bath, And Beyond. He may go a little wild in the pillow section. No one has to know. He finds a big throw pillow, overstuffed black corduroy, that’s perfect for the video room. He picks up, like, five memory foam pillows for himself.

(… eight. He picks up eight.)

——

So, yeah, once he sets up his bed, he has to admit to himself that he’s been nesting.

He’s ready, is all. He wants to be ready. David might happen to look his way.

 

FINAL TOUCHES

He carts the big corduroy pillow into the arena.

He struggles to find a space for it, at first. It doesn’t fit in any of the video room’s chairs. There’s only one desk it doesn’t look weird and out of place on, and when he tries to prop it up there, it slides and blocks some of the monitor controls.

The stack of Panthers blankets is still there, on the floor, against the right-side wall. He brings the pillow over and tries to arrange against them, which is when he realizes that the blankets—“Oh,” he says to himself.

They’ve been used.

It’s not like he can actually smell anything really specific. Just a little bit of _someone’s been touching this_ and _that someone is Florida Panthers Coach David Chapman_ . The scent is much more faint than, say, David’s bed might be. Jake’s bed definitely smells stronger than this. Still, for David’s scent to cling to these blankets at all means he’s used them more than a few times. He likes them. He hasn’t washed them. Jake made a good, soft spot in the video room and David found it and used it and _liked_ it.

It would be creepy for Jake to lay the blankets out and roll around on them. It would also be creepy to rub the top of his head up against them. So he doesn’t do either of those things. He just thinks about it. He leaves them exactly as they were, with the pillow leaned carefully up against them.

——

The video room is in a pretty central location. Exec and office stuff happens in the south wing. Coaching, training, and managing stuff happens in the north wing. The ground-floor hallway begins at the center of the arena and ends in an emergency exit to the parking lot. When Jake chills by the video room, he’s north of the door. That way he’s not an annoyance to anybody who might be trying to get into the room.

David nods to Jake as he walks to the video room. He disappears for a moment. Then he rounds back out, walking more quickly than he was before. He doesn’t stop until he’s about a foot and a half away. Almost closer than Jake’s ever been to David without skates on.

“What are you _doing_?” he asks Jake. One lock of his hair is just a teeny bit out of place.

Jake looks down at his feet. “Calf stretches,” he says.

“I see that,” David agrees.

Jake tries to resist puffing up.

“I meant about the stuff,” David adds. “All of the stuff you keep moving and touching in there.” He tips his head to the side to indicate the video room.

“Ah,” Jake says. David found the corduroy pillow.

“I don’t _understand_ you,” David says. “I thought you were trying to undermine me. But… it’s not… you’re _here_ all the time.” He’s flushed, beautiful, angry. Like he really thinks Jake wants to—to encroach.

“Oh, shit, no,” Jake says. Time to come clean. “I just really like the video room. Like, you’re—I totally respect that that’s where you do your work, I’m sorry. I latched onto it, is all. Like, it’s an important place. To me. In the, uh, alpha sense.” He cringes. _Important place_ doesn’t really cover it. He means, like, Important Place, capital letters, _special_.

David looks nonplussed, but he nods. “Okay. If that’s… could you let me know, next time? Or ask me? Before bringing stuff in?”

“Yes,” Jake says. “Yes, I can absolutely make that—I will definitely ask you. Of course.”

“Good. Thank you,” David says.

“Thank you,” Jake says.

David’s eyebrows lower. “For what?” he asks.

“For letting me mess around like this. Thank you. I know it’s not—easy,” Jake admits.

“Okay,” David says, after a pause.

There’s a moment of silence. Jake wants to stay right here, a tiny bit cornered by David. But he doesn’t want to overstay his welcome. Really doesn’t want to do that. That’s just about the worst thing he can think of, actually. David trying to figure out how to get rid of Jake, and being too polite or professional to do it.

“Great, bye!” Jake says. He gives David a dumb little wave and bounds out of the hallway. Like, very quickly. He picks his shit up off of the floor without actually pausing his movement.

That could have gone better, like, could have ended without Jake getting scared and being a huge dork. But Jake chooses to focus on the bright side. He’s allowed to _ask_ David if he has something he thinks David might want.

——

“Coffee maker,” Jake says, skating up to David. He’s breathing hard enough from their drill set to be able to just make out something of David’s scent, even from a couple of feet away. He keeps his hands on his hips, shoulders lifted.

“No,” David says. He doesn’t bother to look up from his iPad.

Jake takes a moment to catch his breath some more. “Cool,” he says, nodding. He turns back around and goes to see if he can help setting up for the next drill.

 

INTERLUDE

Jake has this fantasy.

In it, David’s hard at work in the video room. It’s a late night, maybe, or a weekend. Not a lot of other people around. Jake ducks in, to say hi, and David drags his gaze over him before giving him a slightly raspy, “Hello.” He sounds a little tired, like he’s been working too hard. Or, really, like he’s just been very focused, and has trouble pulling himself away.

The fantasy tips sideways after that. Jake has no idea how they’d get to the next part. David’s turned his chair around, ninety degrees, so Jake can face him without getting between him and the monitors. He looks up at Jake and spreads his knees, a soft, sure invitation. Jake drops his bag (which he hadn’t been holding before, but dropping it is dramatic in a sexy way) and gets on the floor.

David doesn’t help him out at all. He turns his attention back to the monitor in front of him, pressing play. The sounds of the game start up again at a soft volume. They mostly cover up the sound of Jake unzipping David’s pants. The distinctly omega, very _David_ scent of it all is slightly overwhelming. So is the fact that David lets Jake push his pants and his underwear down to mid-thigh. David’s legs spread wider. He’s sort of hard already, plump and cute. David might kill Jake for saying something like that, but Jake can _think_ it.

Jake’s circumcised, so he usually assumes other people are, too, but about the five millionth time he ran through this fantasy, he realized David’s probably uncircumcised, because Canada.

Okay, back up. For Jake, getting up to no good with his buddy Gabe was a pretty formative experience. Gabe was not circumcised. Jake has a thing about it.

Jake wraps a hand around David’s dick and licks at the head. He tastes nice, in the way that dick can taste nice. Reassuringly flavorless. The scent of sex is already going to Jake’s head.

When David’s dick twitches, Jake leans forward and takes the head in his mouth, sucking softly. David’s precome has that omega flavor. Jake doesn’t think _omega_ actually tastes or smells better than _beta_ does, but David’s an omega, so the scent is _David_. That’s very, very appealing.

Jake concentrates on keeping his tongue moving and his teeth out of the way. When David’s dick twitches again, he sucks a little harder; when David shifts, he sucks harder than that.

He doesn’t start moving his hand until David’s spread one of his knees out as far as it will go with the arm of his chair in the way. He hears David inhale, soft and sharp.

The whole time, David’s still running three- and four-second clips of the game. They’re not on a loop. He hits a button every time, to skip to the next one.

Jake’s wearing basketball shorts, in the fantasy. He’s also freeballing. The basketball shorts are doing what they do, so he’s worked up as it is. He doesn’t touch himself, though. That’s not what he’s there for.

Instead, he slowly, steadily increases the speed of his hand and his tongue. David lets on that he’s into it in small ways. He shifts, breathes out louder than he absolutely has to, maybe pushes forward a teeny, tiny bit. Jake almost doesn’t notice when David finally loses the thread of the game he’s watching and just lets it run instead of looping it. He looks up to see that David’s tilted his head most of the way back. His mouth is parted, red and wet, and he’s looking at the ceiling like he’s asking it for something. His neck is so long and beautiful. God, _all_ of him is beautiful. Jake has to shut his eyes against it.

The fantasy shifts again, before David comes. Jake’s more flexible there than he is in real life, so he can push his shorts down past his knees and spread his legs into a wide kneel. It lets him rub his dick against the floor, which isn’t rough, easy-clean industrial carpet like it is usually. It’s the fluffy white rug he bought at Ikea. It doesn’t look any less tacky but it feels _right_ there, real soft and so silky, almost frictionless. His dick just _slips_ against it as his hips rut down. His precome eventually pulls at the fur, makes things sticky enough for a little bit of friction to pick up.

Meanwhile, David’s breathing heavy, harsh, one leg wrapped tight around Jake’s back, both hands on the chair arms. The game plays softly on, intervals forgotten, and Jake sucks David off.

He imagines that David will let him swallow. Will grind his dick into Jake’s mouth when he comes, because Jake’s mouth is so good to come inside of.

Jake also imagines coming onto the rug as he sucks the shaky end of David’s orgasm out of him. The rug is this soft, perfect thing and Jake gets to smear his come all over it. Leave his scent in, and because it’s his fantasy, not take it to get dry-cleaned or anything. A sign to anyone who might come sniffing around, that Jake gets to come here, literally and figuratively, gets to mess things up and love them and make them his.

 

OTHER TOUCHES

They play the Penguins in Pittsburgh. Afterwards, Jake meets his buddy Stephen and some of the other Pens at a bar. He’s sandwiched between Stephen and a Penguin who’s also from Michigan, who he’s never met but likes a lot. The Michigan connection is strong. Something makes him turn his head sharply to the left, and he catches sight of the door—of David walking through the door.

David’s—David’s headed over to Jake, and he waves to him, so Jake waves back, smiling helplessly, thinking about how he’s going to make his new Michigan buddy move so David can sit next to him if he wants—

Oh, no. David’s eyes are locked just behind Jake, on the next table over. On some genial, cute guy, who gets up, walks a few steps over, and grabs David’s arm to bring him in for a hug.

A _long_ hug.

——

David is facing away from Jake, but Jake’s pretty sure the Pen is making him giggle a lot, and he keeps tipping his head down and up. What if he’s looking up at the Pen through his eyelashes? His pretty hair flopping around? What if he really _likes_ the Pen, and Jake’s just some obnoxious guy at his job?

——

“Joooe,” Jake moans. “What do you think it means if someone lets someone hug them?”

Joe sighs. “I… I feel like we both know the answer to that. Explain.”

“Like if someone doesn’t hug—or touch a lot, or ever, and then they let someone hug them?”

“They probably like the person that’s hugging them,” Joe says.

“Yes, but how?”

“How what?”

“ _How_ do they like them?”

“By—what are you doing,” Joe says. “Who did you hug?”

“Nobody,” Jake says glumly.

“Oh, no,” Joe mumbles. “Who did you try to hug?”

“… Nobody,” Jake hedges.

“Good,” Joe says, shrugging, like that’s the end of it.

“Noooo,” Jake says, dragging the syllable out like the baby he is. “How do you know if someone likes someone else? Like like-likes someone else.”

“I can honestly tell you that I have no idea.”

Jake frowns.

“Oh my god,” Joe says. “I’m gonna regret asking. Is this your Canuck?”

Joe once picked up Jake’s phone and saw an ill-timed text from Gabe.

“No, he’s… no,” Jake says.

Joe sighs. “Figure out a better question,” he says. “Then ask me again.”

——

Jake debates with himself about retiring the whole… hallway thing, but even with the possibility that David’s not interested in Jake that way, he thinks it’s all right? David seems fine with Jake being there, and he seems like someone who would tell him Jake if he wasn’t.

 

HEADWAY

There’s a confusing gala thing that pretty much everybody who’s associated with the Panthers is required to go to. The team staff almost never goes out with the players, and it takes until the day before the event for Jake to realize that maybe David will come. He has a tiny meltdown about his outfit before remembering that David’s seen him in game-day suits a ton of times. David knows Jake can do formalwear. Even if around David, Jake tends more towards shirts that are more arm hole than… shirt.

——

David does come. David wears a suit. Jake expires.

David’s usually wearing nice khakis and a Panthers polo. Sometimes, he wears one of those fleece North Face jackets. It makes Jake want to put his arms around David’s shoulders, fold him in, sniff his hair, rub his back.

Jake wants to do those things a lot of other times, too.

So, anyway, Jake suspects that David defaults to a sort of preppy look, but he can’t be sure, because he literally never sees him outside of work clothes. It turns out that David wears a suit _very_ well. He also looks sort of intense. Jake just wants to check in.

“Hi, David,” Jake says.

“Hello,” David says.

“How’re you?” Jake asks.

“I’m fine. You?” David asks.

“I’m great!” Jake says. He is. He’s talking with David, who said hello to him, and who is wearing a really pretty, charcoal-colored suit.

There’s a moment of silence that Jake fills by asking if he can get David a drink.

“Um, okay?” David asks.

“What’re you having?” Jake asks. He half-turns towards the bar and gently gestures an invitation for David to fall into step with him.

David wrinkles his nose. It’s adorable. “It’s pretty much all beer,” he says.

“Oh, do you not drink?” Jake asks. “I’ve seen people with mixed drinks, I’m sure there’s something…”

“No, I do. I don’t really like beer,” David says.

“Any beer?” Jake asks.

“I like wine,” David says, shrugging. “But the wine is… Some beer I like more than others?” he says when Jake keeps waiting for him.

“What kinds?”

“Lighter ones,” David says. They arrive at the bar. The selection of beer is huge; they only have two wines, and they’re just labeled ‘white’ and ‘red.’

“Let’s test some stuff,” Jake says. Awesome. An activity. A reason for Jake and David to hang out. “Like, get a flight, sort of, and see what you like best.”

David looks at him, head tilted. “All right,” he says. Yes. So awesome.

——

David hates really dark beer. He makes a hilarious and very precious face trying to suppress his disgust. Jake hands that one off to the first teammate who walks past them.

“Good riddance,” he says. “So, lighter?”

There’s one made with coffee grounds that they bypass, and one with an oatmeal aftertaste that David deems “Confusing.”

David refuses to try the two available hard ciders, saying something about how he might as well just drink a screwdriver. Jake doesn’t really understand that, but he lets it go. The apricot beer doesn’t go over well, either. David doesn’t like fruit in his beer.

“But you like wine!” Jake says, laughing.

“Wine is made of fruit,” David argues. “Beer is made of wheat, so it shouldn’t taste like fruit.”

“You’re Canadian, right?” Jake asks, scanning the other offerings.

“Yeah,” David says. “How did you…”

“Hockey,” he says. “I’ve played with enough Canadians to know the accent.”

“Huh,” David says. “Uh, you’re from Michigan?”

“Yep!” Obviously, David knows stuff about Panthers players. It’s his job to know about them. Still. “They’ve got some Canadian stuff. Is Moulson a no-go?” he asks.

“No Moulson,” David says quickly.

“How about Mill St.? It’s organic,” Jake wheedles.

David looks nonplussed.

“Organic!” Jake tries again.

David’s mouth quirks up at one corner. “Okay,” he says.

Jake only does a tiny fist-pump.

And hey, look at that, David actually likes that one.

——

They talk a lot. Jake is basically in heaven.

“You don’t have anywhere else to be?” David asks at one point.

“I would say hi to my agent, but his flight got canceled and he won’t be here,” Jake says. “All yours,” he says, and then has to steel himself against the urge to smack his own forehead.

“Who’s your agent?” David asks.

“Dave Summers, with—”

“CAA,” David finishes. “I interned with CAA Sports.”

“Oh, for real?” Jake asks. “Is that your—your plan?”

David shakes his head. “It was, I guess. That or front office. Front office is still a possibility. I wasn’t Dave’s direct report, but he was good to me. He got me my first coaching spot.”

“Dave’s awesome. He calls me on my shit, y’know?”

“Right,” David says. His brow is slightly furrowed, but he’s smiling all the same.

——

The next day, David’s nod hello in the hallway has something that’s almost a smile to it.

Jake’s on top of the world.

 

TENSION RELEASE

Playing against the Red Wings usually goes smoothly for the Panthers. They don’t always win, but it’s a clean game.

It’s just uncomfortable for Jake, in a distant way. When he meets people from Detroit, he wants to talk to them. Check up on the city, in a weird way. Jake goes home often, compared to a lot of people, and he still wishes he could stop by more.

——

So, this game. A home game, against Detroit. Jake feels slightly mopey, afterwards. Maybe a good kind of wistful. He stops by the video room and hangs out in the hallway for a little while, after everything’s done.

Bradley fought tonight, in a totally justified goalie defense. (In Jake’s opinion, at least.) He doesn’t usually do that. It got the Panthers excited in a good way, and gave most of the coaches and officials minor heart attacks.

Hence, Jake muses to himself, the harried look David gives him when he walks out of the video room and almost directly into Jake’s space.

“Argh,” David says, like the world’s least emotive cartoon. “What are you doing out here?”

“I told you,” Jake says. “I’m into to the room.”

“If you were into to the room you’d be _in_ the room,” David argues. “You’re just out here. Hovering. With your… _shirts_ ,” he says, gesturing to Jake’s chest.

Jake puffs up just a little bit. He can’t help it. “I am! I’m very into it. But I can’t just be _in_ there. It’s your d—” Jake pauses, blanks on something to say to cover it up, and goes for broke instead. “—den. It’s your den.”

David stares at him.

It is, after all, a little out-there for Jake to say he can’t go hang out in the video room because it’s David’s den. It’s only really inappropriate for an alpha to be in someone’s space like that if the alpha is courting the person in question. Sniffing around them. Whatever.

Jake clears his throat. “I think about you a lot? So.”

David rolls his eyes and like, advances. Jake’s fully expecting to get punched, which, kind of fair. Instead, David brings Jake in with a hand on the back of his head and kisses him, wet and messy and hard.

Jake makes himself taller even as he bends in to meet David. He puts one hand on David’s cheek. He’s itching to grab David somewhere and hold him there, but he keeps his other hand at his side.

David keeps getting closer and closer. Eventually, Jake’s back hits the wall with a thump; David breathes in sharply and runs a hand up Jake’s exposed ribs. Jake shivers, hard, and tries to press himself further back, like _do it again, yes, I’m here to be touched_.

David nips at Jake’s lower lip, sharp and bright. Jake whines, or groans a little.

David pulls back with a slow inhale. “I have work to do,” he whispers, maybe an inch from Jake’s lips.

“Okay,” Jake says. His voice is a little high.

David actually pulls away, then, and walks back into the video room. Leaving Jake leaning against the hallway wall for support, hard-on obvious in his shorts, hands at his side. It’s _awesome_.

 

REPEAT

Amazingly, David does it again. The second time, he pulls Jake into the video room for it, almost casually. It would just be a ‘follow me’ gesture but for the way his fingers snag the front of Jake’s shirt.

David lets Jake loom over him. Tilts his face up and bites his lip like he likes that Jake’s so big. Jake is pretty certain that David is incapable of or totally uninterested in deliberately flirting. His expression is flat most of the time. On him, a flat expression just happens to be fucking precious.

“No hickies,” he grumbles softly at Jake when Jake moves his lips to David’s jaw.

“… On either of us?” Jake asks.

David starts a little bit. “Oh,” he says, but seems to lose his train of thought after that.

Jake has to pull away that time, because his dick is getting really excited. His dick thinks he’s going to get laid, and it’s doing its level best to get things moving along.

When Jake gentles things enough to be able to push David back a little bit, David frowns adorably. Jake briefly considers just flipping his boner up into the waistband of his shorts. That would be embarrassing. And has the potential to get _very_ embarrassing. He doesn’t.

 

RESUME PLAY

Video review is the same as it always was. Jake and David are both on their best behavior. Coach is there as a buffer. David is ruthless in his breakdown of Jake’s successes and Jake’s fuckups. Jake is sometimes flattered, sometimes indignant, and always impressed.

——

Jake’s wearing his second-skimpiest tank top. David’s hands are digging into Jake’s sides, at his waist, almost pinching, because David is getting better and better at nonverbal cues. It may help that Jake took David’s hands and put them there.  

David’s fingernails carve sharp little points against Jake’s ribs. He teeths at the top of Jake’s trapezius. Jake shivers.

“Mini fridge,” he says. “Just in that corner.”

“No,” David says, muffled against Jake’s skin.

“No drinks?”

“Appliances hum. And spills harm equipment.”

Jake intends to make a sad sound about that. David pulls away and brushes his lips lightly, so lightly, against the spot he’s been worrying. The sound Jake makes is pretty pleased, instead.

 

CELSIUS

Jake’s not some scent mastermind who can smell a coming heat on someone. Jake’s not totally convinced that that’s possible. But it’s not hard to put some things together. Or, really, to get tipped off by his own anxiety. He starts worrying. He’ll be eating his pregame pasta and start thinking, _Does David have enough to eat?_ He’ll be _making out with David_ and in the middle of it start thinking, _Is he enjoying this as much as he could be?_

One time, on the way to Columbus, the team plane shoots him with a cold rush of recycled air, and he whines under his breath. _What if David’s cold?_

David was in Florida for that trip. David was not cold.

He’s also aware of David almost all of the time, and when he’s not, he wants to be.

He looks for David in a bar in Jersey. Again: David is in Florida.

“Hey, buddy,” Gally said, sidling up next to him and slinging an arm around his neck. “You wanna get drunk or get sober?”

“Drunk,” Jake decides gratefully.

——

Drunk is a mistake. It’s less painful than sober, but he ends up earnestly asking Gally, “I’m big, right? You can tell? You think other people know I’m very strong? And big?”

Gally records some of it and sends it to Joe. That lovable bastard.

——

When Jake gets back and really looks at David—yeah. He’s got that edge to him. Jake would never, ever know, if he wasn’t feeling so keyed in to everything David does, everything David might want.

“I have work to do,” David says later when he sees Jake in the hallway.

“Okay,” Jake says. It is. He’s happy to stand out here and keep an eye out. For like, wild animals, he guesses. Just in case David ends up too distracted to see a charging alligator, or whatever.

“No,” David says. “I mean.” He snags Jake’s shirt and tugs. Jake lets himself be led into the video room. Like always, David locks the door. “Um, quick,” David says.

Sweet. “I can do quick,” Jake says. So quick.

David’s all squirmy. He smells like heat—like _sex/excitement/frustration_. Jake doesn’t totally get what’s happening until David huffs and pulls Jake forward by the elbows. He traps himself between Jake and the wall and looks up. Sweat’s just barely dampened the hair around his temples. His mouth is very pink.

“Quick,” David says, and kisses him.

Jake can so do that. David’s definitely—he can’t quite keep still. He smiles when Jake pins him to the wall, though, and bites his own lip when Jake wedges a knee between David’s thighs.  

“C’mon,” David says as he starts to move his hips restlessly against Jake’s upper thigh. It shouldn’t be enough, but: David’s in heat, and Jake is strong and big.

Jake loves this kind of thing. Is sort of jealous of omegas, of their quick, light, frequent heats. Sometimes, Jake’s heats come on like a punch to the jaw. The other way looks _fun_ —just feeling really horny for a couple of days, being easy to get off and easy to work up again.

David humps him kind of helplessly while Jake moving his leg in counterpoint, pushing up and dragging, over and over and over. It’s basically a muscle group isolation exercise. Except for the way that David’s moving frantically against Jake, shaky and messy, huffing choked-off gasps into his ear.

Jake shushes David as he comes all over Jake’s thigh, body tensing up horribly, locked stiff, and then relaxing, going limp and calm inch by inch. It’s not that David makes a lot of noise in… not bed, but whatever this has been. Jake just thinks David could do with some good soothing noises. He pets David’s shoulders, too, just because he can. They’re always so tense.

 

VICTORY LAP

Their next game is at home. They have a short morning practice, during which Jake kills it. So much so that Coach has to tell him to pack some of it away for that afternoon.

Gally keeps waggling his eyebrows at Jake in the shower. Jake grins back, unabashed. Hell _yeah_ , look at those bruises on the top of his shoulder. Why wouldn’t he show that off?

“Put your tits away, man,” Joe says, of Jake’s tank top of choice, but Jake is a champion of this arena. Jake will not be moved.

——

On a hunch, after all of the game bullshit is over, Jake hustles discreetly to the video room. (To be clear, the game bullshit is not the game but the stuff afterwards. Not even media, really, just the million little things, the sitting around waiting to do media, the sitting around waiting for the okay even though media is clearly over and he has places to be.) Tonight, he’s a winner. An exhausted, Wednesday night winner, but still a winner.

Sure enough, David’s there, watching a two-second clip from the second period over and over again. David’s a winner tonight, too. “Hey,” he says to Jake without turning around.

“Hi,” Jake says.

David runs the clip a few more times. Jake watches it, trying to figure out what David’s looking at, looking for.

David hits some buttons on the keyboard, brings up a spreadsheet, and types something into a box. “Close the door,” He says.

Nice.

——

They’re just making out. Again. Jake is a gentleman. Jake is not going to escalate this. Jake is not—

“I could blow you,” he mumbles. Arguably, he’s biting the top of David’s ear; realistically, he’s shoved his nose behind David’s ear to smell him better. David smells really, really good. As always.

“Not _here_ ,” David says, pulling away abruptly. He’s straight faced, but Jake thinks it might be David’s version of looking scandalized.

“Oh,” Jake says. “Um, you could—do you want to come over? I have a really nice apartment. If you want. Sorry. I was going to be good. This is—you work for the Panthers, this is probably, like, really bad, for me to ask that—”

“What?” David asks.

“Like, come over, to my place, because you said, you said, ‘Not here,’” Jake says. Is he about to get sued? He should probably be sued.

“Okay,” David says. His face is as flat as ever.

Holy shit. It’s not like the past few weeks haven’t given Jake a clue that David could be interested, but it’s a lot to suddenly get part of what you’ve been wanting. “Yeah?” Jake asks.

“Yes,” David says. Jake’s gotten more excited responses in his time, but coming from David, that seems to be about as excited as it gets.

Then, he has to ask, because it’s been on his mind for weeks and weeks, “Uh, you’re not seeing anyone, right? Or, you’re okay to be seeing me?”

“I’m not dating anyone,” David says. “Do you want to _date_ me?”

“So much,” Jake says. He is a heart-on-his-sleeve kind of guy.

“… why?” David asks, head tilted.

“I told you,” Jake says. “I think about you a lot. I like you.” _Do you like me, check yes or no, please check yes, but check one either way, please. Or don’t, that’s good, too._

“Oh,” David says. There’s a little line between his eyebrows like Jake’s being confusing.

“Like, I like-like you, I have a crush on you, so if it’s okay to see you, I want to do that,” Jake tries to clarify.

“… Really?” David asks, then looks mortified. “I mean. Yes. I would like that.”

“Awesome,” Jake says. “That is really, really awesome.”

——

Joe makes a sound like _Seriously?!_ at Jake as Jake power-walks to his car. Jake doesn’t slow down. He’s picking David up on the other side of the arena, and omegas in heat wait for no man.

 

WINDOW DISPLAY

“This is it,” Jake says when he opens the door. He should not be nervous. He is very, very nervous.

David quietly takes off his shoes and puts them on the small shoe rack by the front door. He stands there in his socks. “This is nice,” he says.

“I’ve been on a room design kick lately,” Jake says.

“I noticed,” David says, a little wry. A _joke_.

Jake laughs, probably too loud. “You want anything to drink?”

David opens his mouth, hesitates, and asks, “What do you have?”

“Mill St.?” Jake asks.

“Really?” David asks.

“Yeah,” Jake says. “I mean, I liked it, it was good, and you liked it, so I thought—I don’t know, beer doesn’t really go bad.”

“That sounds fine,” David says. He’s still pretty hard to read, but definitely in like, a cute, confused way.

Jake leads David to the kitchen area and grabs two from the fridge. He pops off the tops with the bottle opener he installed against the wall, holding both bottles in one hand as he catches the caps with the other.

David makes a slight, acknowledging noise about the bottle opener. Jake pretends he’s not flattered.

“Would you want to see the place?” He asks as he hands one bottle to David. “I could show you around.”

“Well, you’ve been on a room design kick,” David says, nodding. He takes a pull of his beer. Jake flashes briefly back to a zoo exhibit where you could feed some  wild birds, if you stood very still and didn’t make any noise.

“Great!” Jake says, shaking his head. “So, I guess we can start in—in here, I got this knife block, it’s really cool, and a bunch of new kitchen knives with it, wow, that’s a creepy thing to start with. I also painted the cabinets?” He gestures above himself. “They used to be all kind of grey-white, and I liked it when I moved in, but lately it started to bug me? It looked cold.”

“So you painted them… cream?” David asks.

“Yeah,” Jake says. “What do you think?”

“It looks nice,” David says after a slight pause.

“Thank you,” Jake says, leading him past the front door again. “And then in here, obviously, you saw the shoe rack, that’s new. The living room, or the living room area, I guess, I rearranged a lot of it, so it’s a little friendlier-looking, and I picked up some pillows and—throw blankets? Is that the right word?”

David shrugs. “I like it,” he says. He passes a hand over the closest blanket and makes an appreciative noise.

“Oh, try this one,” Jake says, picking up his favorite and handing it over to David. Jake doesn’t even put his face on it! (… Sometimes, by himself, he likes to rub his face on it.)

David strokes a hand over it, softly, and then another time with more interest. He lets the fuzz pass between his fingers. “Huh,” he says.

“Right?” Jake asks.

David passes his hand over it a third time and then places it gently on the chair closest to him. “What next?” He asks.

“Well,” Jake says. “There’s the dining room, there, I’m sure you got that, and then there’s the view.” He goes to the far wall. “The curtains open with this light switch thing? It’s really impractical, but I guess you don’t have to walk the length of the apartment if you want it open—like that,” he says as the curtains slide open.

It’s late. Not late-late, but late. Around midnight. The whole city is sparkling under them.

“It’s a nice view,” David says. He walks up to the window.

“You think so?” Jake asks. “Dave’s congratulations note about the apartment said to choose one with a waterside view next. But those can really blind you in the morning.”

“What’s upstairs?” David asks, nodding to the staircase.

Jake clears his throat. “Guest bedrooms, my bedroom, and the den, uh, games room.” Den. Classy, Lourdes.

David looks at him.

 _Oh_. “Would you want to see them, too?” Jake asks.

“Yes,” David says.

“You first,” Jake says, ushering him up. He mostly doesn’t stare at David’s ass or his hair or his neck as they head up.

“The left is the den and my room, and the right side is the guest rooms.”

David pads forward and pokes his head in the doorway of the first guest bedroom. “It looks comfortable,” he says.

“Thank you,” Jake says. He wants to snatch it back—David was talking about the room, not complimenting Jake’s taste—but it hangs out there. “The other one’s the same. Same lighting and everything.”

David _hmms_.

“They share the bathroom,” Jake says. “It has two sinks. So does my bathroom.”

David nods. He crosses the hallway to the games room. “The couches are nice.”

“Yeah,” Jake says. “I think so.” They’re more like one giant, angular u-shaped couch. It’s a warm brown, and the seats are really long. “My sisters like to stay in here when they visit,” He says. “The view keeps going.”

David doesn’t say anything about that. Instead, he says, “And your bedroom’s next to it?”

“Yeah!” Jake says. His _calves_ are tensed, waiting. He scratches the side of his neck

David flattens himself against the hallway wall, like he’s giving Jake room to pass. He has _such_ pretty eyes.

“Are you going to show me?” David asks.

“Oh my god,” Jake says. “Yeah.” He grabs David’s sleeve and pulls him into his bedroom.

“So the closets, I did them first, kind of,” Jake starts.

“Jake, they’re very nice.” David runs a hand up Jake’s arm and leaves it on his shoulder. “You can show them to me later?”

Jake swallows. “Yeah?” He asks.

“Later,” David says again.

 

NSFW

Jake’s been watching David’s mouth and also _kissing David’s mouth_ for a while, now. He wants to get _in_ there, learn David’s molars, stroke the roof of David’s mouth with his tongue, nibble his lips until they’re pink, pink, pink.

They’re sitting on the edge of Jake’s bed. He kisses David slowly, at first, sliding one hand up underneath David’s jaw and his other arm around his waist. David pushes into it—lets his jaw go slack—grows slowly heavier and heavier against Jake.

After a minute or two, David lets out this sigh and the tension in his body dissipates somewhat. His eyes fall shut. Jake pushes in closer, moving his hand from David’s jaw to the back of David’s head. His neck rolls back a little bit.

Jake ends up sliding his tongue back and forth against David’s, hot and fast. David—well, David _might_ suck on his tongue—oh, okay, David definitely sucks on Jake’s tongue, these slow, soft, receiving pulses every time Jake’s tongue moves forward against David’s.

Obviously, this is going to remind Jake of sex, but—it reminds Jake of sex. Especially when he keeps going for too long, or something, and David huffs out an annoyed little breath and squirms closer, on top of Jake, trusting that Jake will handle his weight for him.

Jakes _loves_ kissing.

David, historically, has seemed to like it, but he also seems pretty nervous. He’s shaky. Not like he was before, when he had the confidence of a heat on his side.

Jake nibbles on David’s lower lip, because he _wants_ to, because he’s watched his mouth for _ages,_ now. David’s mouth always looks ridiculous. If Jake bit his lips that much, they would be chapped all the time. David’s aren’t. They’re soft, and slick, and pretty.

If Jake’s mouth is busy with David’s mouth, he won’t blurt out anything super embarrassing about how he wants to marry him and have a bunch of crazy heat sex in the video room. He does mumble, “Wanna—want you.” David just keeps pressing forward and pulling back, so hopefully he was distracted.

David smells good, just like himself, no extra scents on top of that to obscure it. He almost smells warm? And the calmer he smells, the more focused Jake gets. He wants to just _burrow_ inside of David. He wants so much. When David’s hands aren’t jittery and his scent’s gone steady, Jake gives in and lets himself tip backwards, propped up on one elbow, David still above him.

David is so satisfyingly small and heavy. Compact, strong.

“Can I blow you?” Jake blurts out.

David pulls back a little. “Um,” he says, trailing off. His mouth is open, red-pink and used-looking. He’s breathing deep and fast, chest moving up and down obviously. His hair is usually so neat. It’s mussed, now, out of place, curling here and there.

He’s too shy to look Jake in the eye. How is he so shy, when he’s so pretty, when Jake _likes_ him so much?

Jake tightens his hold on David’s hair and David’s eyes flutter, David’s hips drive down. Okay, yes, awesome. Awesome.

He flips them over. David stares at him for another beat and starts fumbling with the buttons on his polo. Jake tries to help by pushing it up. He isn’t that helpful.

Eventually they get David’s shirt off, through teamwork. Jake’s shirt follows by Jake scrambling to make it happen.

He means to get right to David’s dick. Really, he does. Possibly while kissing his way down David’s chest. Jake’s seen that in so much porn and, in his opinion, not nearly enough in real life. David’s scent is unexpectedly thick around his collarbones. Jake opens his mouth and sucks on one of them, pushes his tongue into the dip between them.

He smells sticky-sweet. He smells wet. He’s propped up on his elbows, watching Jake. When Jake looks up at him he looks away, shy. That’s okay, though, because Jake’s going to make him feel so good.

Jake tears himself away from David’s chest and leans back to help David squirm out of his pants and his underwear. Even his dick is pretty, Jake thinks, now that he finally, finally gets to look at it. Flushed and hard. Uncircumcised, so it looks shy, like David does. Jake wants to, like, pet it, like it’s an animal who just needs some attention. He doesn’t—if they were just gonna do handjobs, David would’ve stopped Jake before Jake got to his bedroom, would’ve pulled Jake down onto a couch or a chair. David wanted to come home with Jake, to Jake’s bed, so that Jake would make him feel good.

… Jake’s moving his hips in small circles against his bed and staring at David’s dick. Maybe it’s not the best time he could be showing David.

He shimmies downward and ducks to take David in his mouth. David gasps when Jake gets a hand around him. Jake looks up, deliberately, as he licks up from the end of his fist to the head of David’s dick. He curls his tongue around the head and David’s hips jump; David just watches him for a moment, mouth open, before reaching down with an unsteady hand to tuck a piece of Jake’s hair behind his ear.

The _scent_ of David hits him, thicker here than it was at his collarbones, and muskier, too. Wet-sticky-sweet- _good_ . He settles in for the best dick sucking he can offer. Strong suction, a good amount of tongue movement. He doesn’t _know_ , but he thinks omegas and girls like the tongue stuff? Like, it makes them thinks about getting eaten out? And Jake is _all_ about that.

Jake’s started off slow, just like with the kissing, but David’s already gone from gasping to nearly-silent, lower belly jumping, giving up precome and slick at a steady pace.

They’ve gone slow in general, actually, apart from David coming all over Jake’s thigh. So Jake thinks it wouldn’t be cool to just go for it, fingers-wise. He slides his middle and ring finger down past David’s balls and lets them rest at David’s taint. He’s slick back there, so, so inviting, and if Jake thinks about it too hard he will definitely come. He pets David back there, dipping his hand slowly down, stroking his asshole. At the same time, he uses the thumb of that hand to press firm, shallow pulses against David’s taint. When he circles his middle finger along the rim, questioning, David blindly reaches down and swats at him. Jake pulls back and hums an _okay_.

A beat later, he gets the right angle on David’s taint. David’s hips push up, hard, into Jake’s mouth. Jake groans. That’s _so_ hot. So hot, and good for David, because he gasps softly and keeps doing it. Jake opens up his throat and keeps his hand loose enough for David to keep pushing himself up, up, up.

He’s not gentle. He doesn’t warn Jake before he moves backwards and comes, Jake rubbing his tongue against the head of David’s dick.

There’s essentially nothing in Jake’s head. Just scent, taste, David. He wants to do this for a really long time, if not forever; when David whimpers uncomfortably and shoves at Jake’s shoulder, Jake pulls off with one long, firm suck.

He stops pushing his thumb against David, too, but he keeps his hand there until—he ends up on the bed, on his back. Jake’s feet are flat on the bed, David held between his thighs. David’s blowjob technique is sloppy, enthusiastic, dirty. Jake’s dick looks so big, forcing David’s pretty, pretty mouth open wide. David’s lips had looked wet and used from kissing. It got worse while Jake blew him. Bitten. Swollen. Just—fat lips Jake wants to fuck inside of _so_ badly. He threads a hand through his own hair, pulling. Between the view and David’s scent being everywhere, Jake’s honestly impressed that he didn’t just nut in his pants while he was blowing him.

“Gonna, gonna come, David,” Jake says. When David doesn’t pull away, he gives in to it. Closes his eyes, lets his head fall back onto the bed, and comes inside David’s mouth. He doesn’t stop sucking quickly enough, which hurts, but it gives Jakes a chance to reach down and wipe a thick trickle of come away from the side of David’s mouth. He really wants to pop his thumb inside David’s mouth and leave it there, pressed against his tongue. Wants to stay in his mouth, which is probably an alpha hindbrain knotting thing, dumb and excitable, wanting to _keep_.

 _God_ , does Jake want to keep him.

David reaches for his briefs, though. (David wears briefs. Jake had wondered.)

“Heading out?” Jake asks, acting cool. Hashtag not bothered.

David’s face flattens out. Jake hadn’t realized how wide-open he’d looked until he stopped. “Sure,” he says, voice just as flat.

“Cool,” Jake says, “I mean, that’s cool, that’s—I’m gonna go for broke, here, and say that I really want you to stay? I really want you to stay.” He swallows. “I get that this is a weird situation, though, and if you have—work in the morning, I guess, um—”

“No,” David says. “That’s. Fine. I can stay.”

“Really?” Jake asks. Hashtag no chill. “Like. Are you hungry? I could order you something. Us something. Or get you something to drink, or if you—do you want to, anything, we can do whatever.”

David’s face changes slightly. “I should clean up,” he says.

Something really fucking stupid twists a little bit in Jake’s chest. “Just come up here, first,” he says, making grabby hands until David does. He kisses him on the mouth, softly, because David looks—god, he looks good, like his mouth must be sore. He licks David’s bottom lip, soothing, but pulls back. “Unless—you don’t, like, complete the circle, sorry,” Jake says.

“What?” David says, forcing Jake to explain what that means. Jake’s reasonably sure that he kills some of the mood in the process. David’s mouth twitches, like he thinks Jake’s kind of funny. Jake can’t stop his answering smile, even though David himself isn’t really smiling. David just shakes his head a little bit and leans back in to kiss him again.

Jake gets a hand in David’s hair and it’s just, it’s too easy to fall backwards, pulling David with him.

 

WRAP-UP

After what Jake thinks is at least a few minutes, David mumbles, “I should clean up.”

“No,” Jake replies softly, but he lets his hands slide down to the bed so that David can get up.

“I’m gross,” David says, wrinkling his nose up and squirming so that his bare thighs rub together.

“You smell fucking incredible,” Jake says honestly. “What do you need me to do?”

“What?” David asks, pulling his briefs back up.

“What do you need me to do? To clean you up?” Jake asks.

“I don’t,” David says flatly. “I’m not a child.”

Ouch, but. “Okay,” Jake says. It’s fair. “You can do whatever. Um, the shower is really nice. I didn’t do anything for that one, it came with the apartment. It’s a rainfall shower. I know people say the water pressure is no good on those but I haven’t had any problem with it. The towels are good, though. I chose those.”

David just keeps looking at Jake. “All right,” he says, giving Jake a nod. He leaves for the bathroom, closing the door after him. The shower starts up.

——

When David emerges, he’s got a towel wrapped around his waist. Jake, sitting up, can see the waistband of his underwear just above it.

“Um,” David says, looking distinctly uncomfortable. Also, wet.

“Hm?” Jake asks, eyes darting between David’s eyes and one droplet of water moving slowly down his shoulder.

“Do you have a hair brush that I could borrow?” David asks. His jaw is looking particularly angular.

“Oh, yeah!” Jake says. “Totally!” He stands. “Do you want my—my sisters, I keep stuff for them here, I’m sure at least one of them never opened one of the ones I got for them. Or you could use mine,” Jake says. He shifts to face the bathroom door, and his bedroom door, and back again, wanting to act.

“Yours would be,” David swallows, “fine.”

Jake starts in David’s direction. Then, looking at David’s tight grip on his towel, he thinks better of it. He darts back and grabs his post-game sweats. Yanks them on before padding into his bathroom.

The mirrors aren’t all fogged up like they are after Jake takes a shower. He makes eye contact with David in them and it feels _electric_.

“Here,” he says, rummaging through one of the drawers below the counters to find his brush. He hands it over to David.

“Thank you,” David says. He starts tackling a knotty mess of curls behind one of his ears. Jake sniffing at him there probably didn’t help matters.

“I don’t think I knew your hair was this curly,” Jake says.

“I blow dry it,” David replies.

“Oh,” Jake says, nodding. “Oh, wait, I have one of those if you want! My sisters—do you want one?”

David pauses in his brushing. “All right,” he says.

Jake scrambles to go find the blow dryer he’s sure Nat left somewhere in the guest rooms. While he’s there he grabs a spare toothbrush. When he gets back, dryer and toothbrush held up triumphantly, David’s finished brushing his hair. It’s combed straight back, slick and blonde, like Draco Malfoy’s.

Jake puts down the toothbrush. He plugs in the hair dryer and hands it over. “I can go,” he says.

David shrugs. “Actually, it’s late,” he says, putting the hair dryer down on the counter. He turns to face Jake. “I should probably be going to bed. I’ll have to shower again in the morning, anyway.”

“Okay,” Jake says. He shifts his weight, looks at their feet. “And, um, will you do that… here?”

David hesitates.

“I would really love for you to do that here,” Jake says. “If you want to.”

“I can,” David says, and so they lose twenty minutes of their already-late night trying to figure out a comfortable way to make out up against Jake’s bathroom sink.

——

“Could I borrow some clothes?” David asks.

“Yes, oh my god, yes,” Jake says. He walks over and opens the door in his bathroom that connects to his closet. “So, if you’re walking in from that door,” he says, gesturing to the door between his closet and his bedroom, “getting dressed is clockwise? Like, my underwear and my socks are over there, and then my shirts…” he trails off. “Wait, why didn’t I start it from this direction?” he asks, mostly of himself.

David’s looking over at— _up_ at—him with a small almost-smile. “It’s fine,” he says. “Not bad.” He’s so pretty.

“Pants,” Jake blurts out. “Sweats in the lower drawer of that dresser. Shirts, socks, um, underwear are all in there, too. And I’m going to go. Now. Go now.”

——

When David crawls into bed with Jake, he’s wearing one of Jake’s shirts and a pair of his sweats. His hair is damp and soft. He smells so good, like himself and like Jake.

Jake’s on his side, facing him. His hair is in his eyes, a little. David brushes it away for him.

“Thanks,” Jake says.

David doesn’t say anything. He’s looking nervous again.

“Are you tired?” Jake asks. “I’m tired.”

“Yes,” David says, after a pause.

“Cool,” Jake says. He yawns as he reaches over and curls a palm around David’s far shoulder and hauls him in close.

“Oh,” David says. He sounds surprised. It’s cute.

Jake reins in the impulse to say so just in time. Instead, he rubs his thumb along David’s collarbone. David relaxes, slowly, inch by inch, moving closer and closer to Jake as he does so. “Can I hit the light?” Jake asks.

David’s eyes flutter half-open. He nods. Jake cranes around to turn off the lamp by his bed. When he turns back, he puts his hand on David’s hip and slides it up to his shoulder. David presses back into him. Jake can’t help himself. Or, he could, but he doesn’t want to: he hooks his leg around David’s hip and pulls him in again. David _fits_ there.

Almost automatically, Jake nuzzles downwards until he has his face in David’s hair. He doesn’t smell like sex anymore, but he smells clean and calm.

If this were an absolutely perfect world, Jake could reach down and dip two fingers between David’s legs. Tease him open. Soothe him with that pretend-knotting, passive, something reassuring inside of him as he falls asleep.

An arm slung fully across David’s chest is fucking good, though. So is David moving incrementally until Jake is less spooning him and more covering him.

Jake’s been accused of being a clingy sleeper.

Once or twice.

Maybe a bunch of times.

David doesn’t seem to mind. He stays lax. Or, not quite lax. Not as in _limp_. But snuggly? Like, snuggle-able. His breathing evens out. He doesn’t make Jake stop sniffing him. Or rubbing his face against David’s scalp. Or weighing him down.

Jake’s a little cold, and David’s nice and warm.

They fall asleep just like that.

 

UP AND ABOUT

“Hi,” Jake says in the morning, when his alarm goes only a split second after David’s does.

David probably acknowledges him back. There aren’t any words in it, just _“_ Mnnngh.”

He slides a hand into Jake’s hair and pulls on it, blinking sleepily at nothing in particular. Jake moves away from David’s hand to feel the tug. It’s a nice tug. He’s sort of loving it.

Fair’s fair, so he reaches over and sproings one of the loose curls at the nape of David’s neck.

“You needed to dry your hair,” he says quietly. Like, _he_ thinks David could just go out all… bouncy, but David doesn’t, so. “What time do you start work?”

David’s mouth twists a little bit. He hums. His head falls fully back against his pillow.

Jake pets the side of David’s head and has a sudden thought about going out and getting food for them. David doesn’t need to go anywhere. Jake’s got such nice blankets. Thick, soft, fluffy. They’re down, but they’re not too thick for Florida. Heavy and breathable at once. Jake could get up, tuck David back in, and go make them food. He could watch David eating it, which is important. It’s important that David eats.

“Eggs?” He asks David.

David nods slightly.

“I can put cheese in them,” Jake offers. “Onions.”

“Diet,” David mumbles, muffled but still unmistakably disapproving.

“Mine?” Jake asks. “I can put cheese and onions just in yours,” he offers.

David nods again.

——

Jake whistles to himself while he makes their breakfasts. He scrambles David’s eggs in butter, with onions and cheddar. He makes his own with spinach and that only-sort-of-weird olive oil spray. He also makes David a smoothie, separate from his own. Jake puts lots of protein powder in his, which makes them taste a little chalky. David’s smoothie gets the package-recommended serving. And spinach instead of Jake’s usual kale. The kale-blueberries mix turns his smoothies a particularly unappetizing shade of grey. Spinach… makes it less grey.  

 _Fuck_ , Lourdes, get a hold of the situation.

David’s on his back, eyes open, when Jake comes back.

“Hi,” Jake says.

“Hmm,” David says. He starts sitting up. Jake feels like it would be a good idea to help him up, probably. Or maybe a bad one.

“I brought food,” Jake says, instead of _please eat this while I watch you eat it_.

“Thank you,” David says when Jake sets his plate down on his lap. He watches Jake while Jake moves his own plate from his right hand to his left so he can put it down on the bed. Jake struggles with the smoothies tucked under his right forearm.

“Yours,” he tells David, handing over the prettier of the two.

“Why is yours different?” David asks, sniffing his smoothie delicately.

“Three more scoops of protein powder for a total of four. And enough kale to make it this color. I put spinach in yours, though.”

David takes a sip. “It’s not bad,” he says. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” Jake says. He sets his smoothie down on his end table so he can pick up his plate again and settle into bed with it.

They’re both quiet for a little bit, eating. Jake would normally have a protein bar or something after a game, but he was a little busy last night. He’s starving now.

Jake wants to pretend they can do this forever.

“I have to leave for practice in forty minutes,” he says.

David’s chewing slows down. “All right,” he says.

“I guess we can’t drive in together?” Jake asks.

“No,” David says. His mouth stays open for a moment after he says it. There’s a slight laugh in his voice.

“Okay,” Jake says, ducking his head and smiling.

——

They don’t shower together, but when Jake suggests it, David is visibly tempted to say yes.

——

It turns out David doesn’t have to be at work for another half-hour after Jake has to be at practice. “Just stay here,” Jake tells him. “The door will lock behind you, if you set it to, it’s easy.”

“Fine,” David says. “I can keep checking out your blankets.”

“I know you’re kidding, but please, please, absolutely feel free to do that,” Jake says. “I am already so fucking excited to come home and smell—everything.”

David looks slightly taken aback, but not offended.

“Nice, Lourdes,” Jake still says to himself.

The side of David’s mouth twitches up.

“So, let me show you how to get the door to lock behind you. Unless you just want—you could borrow a key?”

“Don’t give me a key to your house,” David says, tone of voice doing its best to imply that that’s a weird thing to do. Shush. It is not.

“Fine,” Jake says. “Come here, though. There’s a trick to it.”

——

They make out against the door, sloppy and hot. David smells wet, smells sticky. Smells like something should be sinking inside of him.

He looks happy just to stay this way, though. Slightly smiley, head tipped up, biting Jake’s lower lip. Jake’ll take it.

 

CODA I/III: TRUMPETS

“Put it the fuck away, Lourdes,” Joe says.

“What?” Jake asks, feeling his grin stretch wider.

“That face,” Joe says, gesturing.

“Never,” Jake tells him.

——

“I have a boyfriend and he’s perfect,” he tells Nat over FaceTime. She snorts at him. He’s cool with it.

——

“I have a boyfriend and he’s perfect,” Jake also tells David. They’re lying in bed. Everything smells like them.

“Who?” David asks, nose wrinkling. His jokes are hard to explain, but they’re _so_ funny in person, they really are.

“His name is David, and he’s—he lets me just,” Jake trails off, nuzzling into David’s neck.

“Oh,” David says. “That’s fine.” He arches his neck, giving Jake more room to push into him.

His scent’s _calm calm calm_ when he says, “I have a boyfriend too.”

“Good,” Jake says.

——

Volkie is handsome in a way that Jake finds deeply stressful for all of five minutes. It’s not that he thought David was into him. It’s like—they look good together. Full mouths, wide eyes, short-for-hockey. They both have, Jake is fully able to admit, amazing hair.

If any of them is a third wheel, well—people wouldn’t guess that it’s Volkie. He’s so cool, though, and he makes David really happy. Jake’s good with that tradeoff. It’s not really a tradeoff at all.

Plus, Volkie smirks at Jake over David’s head in a way that Jake likes. It’s like he’s saying _Yeah, you landed it, now keep it up, keep living up to that._

——

Georgie’s been weird about bonded couples since getting to the NHL, but he claps Jake on the back really hard.

“Thanks, man,” Jake says, touched. He makes sure to get Georgie’s next drink.

——

Jake hears a low voice behind him during warm-ups. “Don’t fuck up with Chapman,” it warns. He whips his head around just in time to see— _fucking_ Brouwer, of all people. Okay. That’s, um. Okay, that’s actually awesome.

 

CODA II/III: MAKE SPACE

It’s morning. Jake doesn’t have practice until an hour after David has to be at the office. Jake sees this as a perfect opportunity to spend more time together. As in, every minute until they absolutely have to face their other obligations.

“I can drive you into work,” Jake wheedles.

“I can’t show back up wearing this,” David says, indicating his recycled polo-and-pants combo.

Jake kind of wants to pout. If David _could_ , that would be awesome.  

——

On the other hand, it does give Jake an idea.

——

It’s a drawer. In the end table on the left side of the bed. The side that David usually takes.

Jake cleans it out. There’s a little bit of debris. The sticker from an apple. A bobby pin. (Jake could claim it’s from his mom or his sisters, but it’s definitely from back when he was growing out his fade.)

It looks a little bare like that, he decides. Also small. David can’t realistically keep clothes in there. The upside of David having no clothes at Jake’s place is that he has to borrow Jake’s clothes to sleep in. Jake will be sad about that going. He’ll be happy that David has a reason to stick around, though. In case he wants one.

Jake Googles around for drawer lining. Something to make them look less stark, right? The paper ones are underwhelming, but there’s a velvet one that just _speaks_ to Jake. It’s grey. Sort of a blue tinge.

Jake pulls himself back from buying a string of LED lights that run along the bottom of a drawer. But only _just_. It’s so useful! David could find things!

——

They have dinner at Jake’s two nights later. He’s gone to David’s a few times, but—it’s not that his apartment isn’t as nice as Jake’s, it’s that it’s bare. Nothing on the walls, sort of dark furniture. He has a giant TV “for working from home.” And anyway, David’s understandably a little weird about ushering Jake inside before his neighbors see him. Alphas and omegas do get a little wiggle room when it comes to anti-fraternization rules, but it doesn’t hurt to keep things low-key.

Dinner is monster salads, courtesy Jake, and incredibly healthy baked salmon, courtesy David.

“I got you something,” Jake says. “I made you something?”

“What can you make?” David asks, then looks a little embarrassed.

“I cleaned out a drawer.”

“Oh,” David says. His eyes are so blue. Jake can’t be blamed for saying, “And two and a half other drawers. I actually, literally cleaned them, so don’t worry about… lint… or something. I lined them.”

David’s silent for a beat. His head is just-barely-almost cocked to the side. “Okay,” he says. “You can show me after dinner.”

“ _Great_ ,” Jake says. He keeps his fist pump under the table.

——

“It’s nice,” David says. It’s his response to most of the stuff Jake shows him. Jake is getting better and better at identifying the times when David means _That’s nice and you should tell me more about it and do more of it_.

“The half-drawer, see, I was thinking—just for some around-here stuff, sleeping stuff, we can keep our things together. And then they’ll smell like both of us.”

David wrinkles his nose, fighting a half-smile. “We already smell like that a lot of the time,” he says.

Jake drops his nose to David’s neck and sniffs. “Hm,” he says. “I guess.”

David ducks his head and shakes it, smiling for real. “Fine, okay,” he says. “I’ll bring some more stuff over.”

Jake doesn’t hide his fist pump that time.

——

David came over after work. It’s raining out. Not bad, just a Miami kind of sprinkle. His hair got slightly damp, which made him frown and push it around.

Jake insisted on going out alone to get stuff for dinner for them.

David’s been spending more and more time at his apartment, which is awesome for Jake, even if he does think of David’s bed as somewhat hallowed ground that he can only reach if the conditions are exactly right. Hallowed, David-smelling ground.  

Jake lets himself back into his apartment after a slightly rushed grocery-store-and-pho-shop run. David is on Jake’s favorite couch spot, right in his line of vision. Jake gets the slightest hint of a really amazing scent.

“Hi,” Jake says.

“Hello,” David says. He’s probably the only person Jake knows who says _hello_ , instead of _hi_ or _hey_ or whatever. “Just stay right there, okay?” he asks.

David shrugs and settles into his seat.

Jake only has three bags, so they’re pretty easy to juggle. He puts away the important stuff and abandons the rest of it. He leaves his windbreaker and his shoes, too.

David gets up as he walks over. “What?” he asks. He’s changed into a pair of his sweats and one of Jake’s sweatshirts, both of which live in their shared drawer. Jake knows that because he can smell it on him. Smell them on him.  

“Are you hungry?” Jake asks. “Like, can it wait twenty minutes?”

David shrugs.

“Ten?” Jake asks.

“Yeah,” David says.

“Awesome,” Jake replies. He goes to his knees, but softly, because one time David told him that he worries about the effects of blowjobs on Jake’s knees. David _loves_ blowjobs, okay. Blowjobs are a sacred time in David’s life, Jake’s pretty sure. He wants to keep that pure.

“Jake, what,” David starts. He loses the thread. Again, he loves blowjobs. “You’ll—our food will get cold?”

“We can heat it up, c’mon, come down here,” Jake says. David’s already kneeling down.

Jake shoves his face into David’s shoulder and sniffs. He just—he smells like them, and like he’s Jake’s and his own, and sort of buttery. Not like _butter_ , but buttery. Rich and smooth.

Jake sucks him off until he’s shaking. David’s hips work with the teasing finger motions Jake’s using, just dipping into him, two digits at the most. Jake could just do that, petting him inside, all fucking day. He’s plotting round two before round one is over, stuck on how badly he wants to do David on the _floor_. Even while he’s already doing him on the floor.

——

David takes charge of reheating their food. Jake looms behind him, a little bit, wrapping his arms around David’s waist. He sniffs David’s hair, rubs his cheek against David’s neck, rests his chin on top of David’s head.

“Have I told you about my rug?” Jake asks.

“That one?” David asks, meaning the rug that was just underneath them.

“No, the other one. Remind me to tell you about it.”

“Why can’t you tell me now?” he asks.

Jake considers. “You’re right,” he says. “There’s a rug. I got it at Ikea.”

“It’s a good rug?” David guesses.

“Oh, it’s the _best_ ,” Jake says. “I keep it in my car, ‘cause I wanted it to go in the video room, but you’d hate it there, and I’d probably be really distracted if it was there, anyway.”

“You didn’t just bring it inside?”

“No, it feels nice to keep it there. Just in case?”

“In case what?”

Jake shrugs.

David laughs, so sudden and quiet. “You can show it to me. If you want.”

“Yes,” Jake says, very sure that he wants that a lot.

David turns off Jake’s stove—he has a thing about microwaves, Jake doesn’t know, but he’s so happy his apartment came with a Viking range—and tips his head back into Jake’s chest.

Not really thinking about it, Jake pushes his sleeve up and holds the inside of his wrist below David’s nose.

It’s not so weird, even if it’s not something people do in public. Wearing Jake’s clothes makes David smell like Jake, and crawling all over David makes Jake smell like him.

David doesn’t say anything. He picks his head up off of Jake’s chest and leans forward until the tip of his nose makes contact with Jake’s wrist. He’s not audibly sniffing, or anything, but Jake can feel his breath. Longer inhales and shorter exhales against Jake’s skin.

“We need to eat,” David says.

“Yeah,” Jake agrees. “You still think no soup on the couches?”

“No,” David says, laughing and admonishing at once.

“Okay,” Jake says. He bites the very top of David’s ear, softly, just because it’s there.

“ _Jake_ ,” David says.

“David,” Jake says back, unwrapping himself to go get bowls. “I’m going, I’m going.”

——

When Jake arranges the table so that they’re sitting next to each other, David doesn’t say anything. He scoots his chair just slightly towards Jake, though, and they keep their bodies turned in towards each others’ as they eat.

 

CODA III/III: FAHRENHEIT

David’s somewhat cagey about omega stuff. Which is weird, because obviously he is one, and he’s not trying to hide it, exactly. He just doesn’t talk about things the way Jake expects alphas and omegas to talk about them. He laughs and sometimes, in his own subtle way, plays into it when Jake goes on about his scent, their scent.

But David goes bright pink when Jake says anything that directly implies he remembers that David’s an omega. That Jake likes it. Jake tried to work up to talking to David, in a sexy way, about how wet he gets. (Not unusually so. It’s just. A lot, for Jake.) David clammed up, turned a tiny bit surly. Jake dropped it.

Jake knows it’s probably about being a guy. He’s met a few guys who were omegas, but only a few, and that includes guys Jake shook hands with just once. It’s not common, and the inevitable implications of, like, _effeminate_ , _gay_ —David’s a little sensitive to them.

——

All of that is to say that they haven’t really talked about heats. David’s left small spaces in their conversations that make Jake think he’s probably not interested in talking about his own. He hasn’t indicated the same reluctance as far as Jake’s go, though, so Jake takes a chance and asks.

——

Jake asks how David feels about stopping by when Jake’s in heat.

“Oh,” David says. “Yes?” David says.

“Cool,” Jake says. He figures it’s all right if he beams.

——

“I haven’t done that before,” David says, when Jake brings it up again. His heat comes around in the spring. He induces it during the All-Star Break when he can.

What. “Really?” Jake asks. It doesn’t seem impossible, but wow, what a waste.

David just shrugs.

Jake would very much like to interrogate David about why he hasn’t. He can guess. People have obviously wanted David. There’s no way they haven’t. Probably too much, and in the wrong ways. Choosing someone to spend your heat with can get complicated. In high school, it was a big deal. At Jake’s high school, at least. It was like prom. He didn’t spend his heat with someone until college, and even then, there was some ceremony to it.

It’s always a choosing thing. That’s how people talk about it. Like an in-crowd situation, almost.

Jake can see how David would get passed over. Especially since he’s not interested in alpha girls. It’s so fucking stupid, getting choosy about who you spend time with. And weird. David isn’t below standards. He’s the standard. If he were a beta, or maybe an omega girl, he’d be getting ten offers a day.

He probably does get more than he realizes he gets. Once, Jake watched David say a blank, polite thank-you to a waiter who comped his entire meal for him. The waiter said she did it ‘because she felt like it.’ Jake couldn’t even feel jealous. He just felt kind of bad for her. He knows what it’s like, wanting to give stuff to David, and vying for his attention.

——

When Jake’s heat comes on, it happens quickly and steadily.

David can’t be there for the first couple of hours, but that’s okay—Jake’s busy prowling his apartment. He keeps picking up pillows and putting them down. Checking over the food he’s prepped, to be sure there’s enough. He grabs a shirt of David’s and rubs it over the back of his neck absently—it feels right, okay—before giving up and heading to bed to jerk off.

Twice.

His head’s clear enough, after that, for him to keep moving around. Instead, he rubs himself all over his own sheets. He changed them, just for this. They don’t smell like him. It’s wrong.

He pulls his head out from under his pillow when he hears David knock.

When he walks downstairs, he stumbles a little. Keeps walking with a hitch in his step on the way to his front door.

“Hi,” he says when he opens the door. David’s dressed in his usual work clothes. He’s beautiful.

“Hi,” he says back, and leans up to kiss him right after he steps in and closes the door.

It’s like something catches fire in Jake’s stomach—his heat forced from _beginning, banked_ to _full-flame_. He really wants to look at David, and to keep kissing David, but he can’t stop sucking on the side of his neck.

“Wh—” David starts, but bites it off when Jake nibbles underneath his jaw. His breath shakes. Jake can feel it against his shoulder. David is definitely humming. Jake might be echoing it. He’s not sure. It’s so soft and, and, yeah. Yeah.

He realizes his hand’s slid down David’s stomach, past his waist. His fingertips are beneath his belt. David’s got one hand on Jake’s back and another on the back of his thigh.

There’s nowhere Jake would rather be. Almost nothing he would rather be doing. Other than, oh, shit, blowing David. “Fuck,” he says out loud. “Can I—can I, you—can I blow you?” he asks. He doesn’t actually pull away to look at David until David doesn’t respond.

David’s mouth works open and closed a couple of times. His eyes are half-lidded, already sleepy-sexy, like he gets in bed. Fuck, Jake loves him. “David?” he asks.

He just hums louder, but it sounds like a good hum. “No, not here,” he continues, when Jake tries to get down there _yesterday_ , fuck, David’s gonna smell so _good_ —“Your knees.”

Jake sighs and moves back up to David’s neck. That’s fine. It’s fine. He can just stay here forever. And David can come all over him, if he wants. If he decides that’s okay.

“So,” David says.

Jake keeps nibbling.

“So,” David says again. “Bed?”

“ _Hm_ ,” Jake agrees, very impressed with David’s insight into the situation. “You’re so smart,” he says, crowding in and getting his hands under David’s ass. David moves his legs around Jake’s waist automatically, and Jake just—Jake is so strong, and he is so excited to show David that he is so strong.

He almost gets distracted again by David’s neck when they’re on the stairs, but David says, “No, up,” and Jake resets.

“Please,” he mouths into David’s hair when he first gets him flat on his back on his bed. (Their bed, Jake likes to think, but he’s not gonna say it, yet.)

He already wants to come—to jerk off onto David, anywhere, everywhere. To, Christ, watch David jerk Jake off onto himself, smiley like he gets after two rounds in bed, or two rounds of drinks.

He also wants to touch David everywhere. He does that—pets his face, first, his cheeks, enjoys that brush of invisible stubble on them. Presses a thumb gently under David’s chin to feel how soft he is, there. Rubs his shoulders and his arms. Moves to massage small circles into David’s chest and his stomach. David starts tensing up and giggling, because he’s totally tickling. Jake goes back to his arms. Rubs over them until David’s all lax and smells—full.

David doesn’t jerk off that often. Jake knows. Jake can smell it. There’s a difference between ‘woke up and showered’ and ‘jerked off and showered,’ scent-wise. And omegas are—it’s good for everybody to come, whatever, but it’s important for them. For, okay, conception, but also, like, physical comfort, brain chemistry, tripping the mental wire that announces that they have somebody around if they want them.

“Please,” Jake says, again. He wants David. He wants David to come.

He massages his sides, too, ignoring his dick. It’ll be back up again soon regardless. He wants David to feel good. To remember that Jake’s just, like, here to take whatever David’s willing to offer.

“Please?” he asks, one hand brushing over David’s pants, the thumb of his other hand rubbing circles into David’s hip.

David pushes on his shoulder in response—not like _up_ , but like _down_. Jake goes happily.

He sucks _on_ David, more than anything. It’s a little selfish; he’s not proud. David just feels so good. He _smells_ so good, and strong, here, too. He _tastes_ good. Jake could do without the overhang of recently-showered scent, but that’s such a David scent. He’s—Jake really likes him. _Really_ likes him.

David hasn’t come yet, which Jake thinks can’t be right. Omegas need to come a lot. Should come a lot. It’s good for them. For hormonal health, for conception, for stress. Okay: conception isn’t a thing here. Jake knows that. But the rest count. It’s hard not to look down at David—just—squirming—and want to make him come. Like, over and over, until he’s so, so shuddery and shaky, and he’s making those high sounds, or no sounds. Until his scent’s broken open into _ready ready ready happy happy happy_.

So, Jake might be a little far gone. So what. It’s okay for him to be far gone. David wants to be here. He’s sweet and smart and he doesn’t mind when Jake just _has to_ put his face in his hair.

David does make deliciously high, small noises just before he comes. He makes slightly higher ones when he does, body locked and tense from the waist up, hips wide open and moving helplessly up into Jake’s mouth.

The scent and the taste is a lot for Jake to take in. He comes into his own hand, rubbing up against the bed. David smells so—like—and he tastes, god. Jake grumbles his satisfaction and David whines about the vibrations.

Jake gets back up, climbs forward, and does a long, full-body stretch over David. Then he gets to lie down on top of him and sniff at his hairline, nuzzling, until he’s satisfied that David’s having a good time. His scent is soft, sweet. He’s not trilling, but David doesn’t really trill, so Jake’s not worried. He’s just excited to put his face all over David’s everything.

——

They talked about this part beforehand. Jake still hasn’t actually fucked David, which he thinks is okay. He definitely doesn’t want to do that with David for the first time while either of them is in heat. That’s rough. Too much. When Jake goes down on David, fingers him, David’s so soft inside, and too tight to just—no. He can’t even think about it. It freaks him out.

“What’s wrong?” David asks.

“Gonna knot,” Jake says, mostly into David’s stomach.

David tugs loosely on his shoulder, a _come here_. Jake goes.

“Where do you wanna,” David says, trailing off before it becomes a question.

Jake pets David’s neck and sniffs his collarbone perfunctorily before settling a hand on his lower abdomen, between his hipbones.

He needs to knot, like, _needs_ to, probably can’t really hold off much longer without it hurting like crazy. So he stays very still and quiet while David stretches his body out a little bit, all long and pretty and right-smelling.

In the end, David just nods. Jake jerks himself off frantically, with both hands, alternately leaning back to watch David waiting for him and leaning in to kiss him. He comes soon after David gets a hand into the mix, trailing over his balls lightly. It tangles up with Jake’s own hands as they move over his dick.

When he comes, David plays with the head of Jake’s dick so that Jake can hold onto his knot _tight tight tightly_.

He’s knotted by himself before, but never with somebody present. David had expressed concern that having him that close and not knotting him would be unpleasant. It’s not. Not at all. It’s so nice, so reassuring. David’s here, and he loves Jake. He’s helping Jake with that just-almost-not-really raw and open feeling. He’s not going to leave, because he smells like Jake, and someone who smells like Jake isn’t going to leave. They are going to stay. Stay here, with Jake, where everything smells _right_ and _good_ . Where everybody has what they need, because Jake is smart and strong, and he _really badly_ wants David to have the things he wants. Jake is a hard worker who can and does provide.

Jake thinks, distantly, that he should have planned this better. He could be sucking David off right now. But—oh, shit, everything in Jake’s world is narrowing down to David’s thumb, slowly working circles across the head of his dick. And the sight of his come slowly pooling onto David. And the _scent_ of the room, thick and hot.

Jake’s world is… a very full place. A full and excellent place. He’s very glad there’s a spot for David in it.

——

That first knotting is always Jake’s roughest. He’s emotional afterwards. David pats his shoulder vaguely. Wrinkles his nose at the come all over his lower belly. He does idly rub some of it into his skin, though. Jake whimpers at the sight.

Jake’s dick feels sore and sensitive—too much so to get back into it for a while. In the reprieve, he makes sure to blow David again. He keeps it tight and firm, just the way David likes it. When David comes, Jake presses down between his hipbones, right above his dick. The sounds David makes are so quiet, but they’re _sex sounds_ , which he almost never makes.

He holds David’s hips down and rubs their come into David’s skin. David lets go of Jake’s hair to do a full-body stretch, languid. He pushes up into Jake’s touch.

——

Knotting outside of somebody—it’s sort of nerve-wracking. Almost scary. Requires a lot of trust.

Jake’s emotional after knotting for the third time. He feels like he’s done, maybe. His focus is shifting from _gotta fuck_ to _cold, cold, get warm_.

David is so nice and warm. Jake’s hazy, but he flashes to the rug in his car. For an insane moment, he tries to convince himself he could get a TaskRabbit to bring it up to them.

He absolutely could not, and also, would _never_ want to bring someone else in here. David wouldn’t, either; he goes limp once Jake's knotted, calm and still and deeply chilled out, even though Jake hasn't gone off inside of him. Jake feels relaxed just looking at him. Breathing in his scent.

… If David really wanted to bring, like, Volkie in here, that would be okay.

Not like _that_. Just, if David wanted another warm person in here, Jake would get it. He’s freezing. Actively burrowing into David’s side can’t be all that comfortable for David.

He tries to apologize, but David waves him off and wriggles until he’s mostly underneath Jake. It means that their bodies are in more contact than they were before. It feels fucking awesome.

Jake’s dick is still sensitive from knotting outside of anybody. He’ll deal with the uncomfortable twinges if they mean he can keep as close to David as absolutely possible while his post-knot body temperature drop tapers off.

“Cold,” he mumbles to David. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” David says, muffled, into the pillow below him. It’s not a yes, absolutely, so Jake grabs kicks the covers up to their waists and drags them up over their shoulders.

David sighs quietly. He settles. They sleep.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at restfic.tumblr.com! 
> 
> Thanks to nowfailingoutofschool for brainstorming and generally talking this one over w/me very extensively.


End file.
